Mother's Day

Oh Mother's Day…you sneak up on us every year.

Or maybe you don't.

Maybe you're a day that some of us are painfully aware of.

You invade our space starting in mid April with all your happy, perfectly adorable Mother's Day commercials.  

I was going to ignore you.  Or at least ignore you the best I could with every Facebook post and cashier I encountered today reminding me what day it was.

But, since this whole blog revolves around me being infertile, I kind of felt like I needed to address the topic.

Today can be a hard day for many, many people.  Not just for people who are craving to be mother's with every ounce of their being, but also for men and women whose mothers have passed away.  For people whose mothers were never really there for them.  For women (and men) actively going through a miscarriage or whose hopes of parenthood are newly dashed.  For people who no longer carry their children in their arms.

Maybe it's your first year without your mom and the pain is real and raw and fresh.  It is for my mom, aunt and uncle.  The first Mother's Day they haven't been able to call their mom.  

Maybe your mom is far away and you can't be with her.  

Maybe you're like me and this Mother's Day just added to all the Mother's Day of the past where you've been praying and wishing and hoping that it will be your last childless Mother's Day.  

This is year number 8 I've made that same wish.

The point is to remember that this day isn't sunshine and roses for everyone. 

But then again, when you're going through a tough time, even the ordinary days can be painful.

We brace ourselves for days like today.  Every person who knew Mother's Day would be hard has been preparing for it.  

What stings the most is when those questions catch us off guard.  When the word 'mother' creeps into a normal conversation and all our emotions and baggage bubble to the surface. Not just for us lumped into the 'infertile' category, but every single person facing a similar situation to those scenarios I mentioned.

Men struggle today, too.  And women will struggle on Father's Day, too, for their own reasons.

The point is to remember to be kind and compassionate.

We don't always know everyone's story.

We don't know what heartache people carry daily.

Choose your words wisely and lovingly.

And always remember that each day does carry sunshine and roses.

You just have to train your eyes and your heart to see them.

And to all my momma friends and family….Y'all rock.  You've got this!

When east meets west

Hello there!

It's been a little while since I last wrote.  It wasn't an intentional break.  In fact, it just randomly dawned on me the other day that I haven't been writing.  I'll blame it on the fact that work has been super busy and so has home/cookie life.  For most of the end of April, I felt like I couldn't catch up at either location and honestly, writing was the farthest thing from my mind.

And, in hindsight, the race was really, really emotionally exhausting and it's taken me a while to recover.  This introvert does not like to be in the spotlight at all, so between that and other obvious reasons, it was a lot harder than I expected. 

So here's a little recap of what's been going on in our post-race life.

I started acupuncture.

Which has been wonderful because it gives me about an hour each week to really relax and shut the world out.  I go to a place who works on a sliding scale payment plan, so it's even better since it's not ripping a huge hole in my wallet. 

But, I can't help but feel like I'm a little late to really have it benefit me. 

Quite honestly, I don't feel like giving it six months to see if it will really work. 

The fact remains that we want a child, that I want to be pregnant. 

And I don't want to waste any more time.

The downside to acupuncture? 

Apparently you can have this 'breakthrough bleeding' which is covered under the blanket statement of 'sometimes your body needs to rid itself of toxins'....which kind of sounds like 'ehh...we don't really know why the heck you bled.'

But to this infertile gal who knows her body so well since I've been tracking it for 8 years and who has never, ever had a little bleeding between cycles, it coincided perfectly with what could have also been implantation bleeding. 

Which was another nice dose of my body just f*ing with me and my mind again.

Which also means acupuncture must be doing something beneficial for me.

Which also doesn't help in our decision to wait it out or continue to press forward with our next steps.

Paul also started umping some little league games.  Which has been a huge blessing to my cookie schedule, but it also means we both feel as though we've barely seen each other.

And it's kind of hard to have monumental, life-changing conversations when you're having a quick ten minute smart one style dinner together. 

Once graduation cookie season is over, things will slow down quite a bit.  I'm taking a little break from cookies and really anticipating the arrival of my nephew soon. 

It doesn't help that this time last year we were full swing into planning our trip to Europe and this year I can't help but feel a little stuck.  No finite vacation plans.

Just trying to make the miniscule decision about where to seek out our potential future children.

Which reminds me....we still have one vial of sperm on hold....guess I need to call and get refunded for that!

 Oh goodness.

Stay tuned cause I have a feeling things may start picking up fast again.

I've got to keep this momentum going because traveling non-stop is starting to look really enticing!